`Stingray`: From Vapid To Violent

March 18, 1986|By Clifford Terry, TV/radio critic.

About the only thing you have to know about ``Stingray`` is that it was created by Stephen J. Cannell, who also created, or whatever, ``The A-Team.`` Sure enough, as evident from its premiere episode last week and the pilot movie before that, this dreadful series (9 p.m. Tuesdays on NBC-Ch. 5 but preempted this week by a two-hour ``Hunter`` episode) is all violence and vapidity, thumping music and tiresome chases.

Nick Mancuso stars as a mysterious, slam-bang Samaritan who wears shades and a leather jacket and tools around in a black `65 Corvette Stingray, spreading word of his do-gooding services in the newspaper classified ads by stating, rather enigmatically, that he hires out for ``barter`` only. Indeed, at one point he informs a lady friend, ``My hands don`t sweat, because I`m never at the pay window,`` and demonstrates his disdain for his own cash flow by tipping a waitress--what a guy--$3,000.

As to how he earns his gas-and-sparkplug money, no one seems to know

--it`s the old Ozzie Nelson syndrome--nor do people even know who he is. The pilot movie did establish that he fought in Vietnam, but the series`

opening segment dispelled the rumor that he was the most decorated soldier of that conflict. Other guesses are that he is a former CIA agent now doing ``bag jobs for South American countries`` and that he freelances for Pentagon special projects. All of which, predictably, leads to cryptic dialogue exchanges like, ``I don`t even know your name.`` ``You shouldn`t.``

Last week ``Ray,`` as he is known, and his former lover posed as an illegal-alien couple who signed on at a marijuana farm, where the sadistic overseer tried to rape the woman and then punched her macho-man playmate in the stomach after informing him, ``You`re history.`` And in the pilot, the lead-free Lone Ranger took on a Latin American mob chieftain who whisked his enemies to a laboratory, slapped electrodes on their heads and erased their memories, as they reverted to 6-year-olds whose main thrill in life was watching TV cartoons.

Stingray himself, of course, is the biggest cartoon of all, especially as played by Mancuso (currently appearing in the critically trashed feature film ``Death of an Angel`` as a phony, mountaintop miraclemaker), who, in this series, runs the gamut from feisty to cocky--a kind of stick-shift Robert Blake.

IN BRIEF . . .

-- ``The Barbour Report`` (11 o`clock every night through Friday on ABC-Ch. 7), which is in the second week of a 10-day tryout, follows hard on the heels of ``Nightline,`` presumably as a fluffy respite for those whose brains have been cooked to the breaking point in trying to come to grips with Marcos and Aquino, Gramm and Rudman.

Conducted by John Barbour, creator of the now-departed ``Real People,``

and emanating ``almost live from Van Nuys,`` the post-Koppel kaffeeklatsch is 35 minutes of cutesy features (a French/California wine-tasting competition conducted in Beverly Hills and in a dumpy neighborhood, the World Series of Watermelon Launching direct from Oregon), jokes about, of course, Van Nuys

(a.k.a. ``Baja Encino``) and Charlie Chan-like aphorisms.

The red-vested Barbour is engaging enough, in a self-deprecating way, coming across as a kind of speeded-up Bob Newhart and relying upon a twangy sardonicism reminiscent of those old Pete Smith one-reel shorts. Last week, interviewees included Jon Voight, who revealed, ``There`s a lot of energy coming my way now,`` and Robin (``Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous``) Leach, of whom the host asked the key question: ``Why shout at your guests? I mean, you`re already in their living rooms.``

-- Ald. Lawrence Bloom (5th) says the reason he introduced a resolution at last week`s Chicago City Council meeting calling for hearings into ``the changes and threatened changes`` in the operation of fine-arts radio station WFMT (FM 98.7) was to alert Chicagoans that ``there is a chance that the station will be sold, or its programming direction changed.`` ``Those are the rumors being heard by people who are close to the station,`` Bloom told The Tribune a few days ago.

According to the resolution, actions by WTTW-Ch. 11, license holder of the radio station, ``have jeopardized the continuing success`` of WFMT

--particularly the replacement of Ray Nordstrand as general manager and the substitution of ``someone with no experience in classical musical

programming.`` The resolution was immediately referred to the council`s Committee on Cultural Development and Historical Landmark Preservation.

``We realize this is a matter of private industry, but when there was a threat of losing a submarine (the USS Silversides), the same committee urged the city to retain it,`` Bloom said in the interview. ``I consider WFMT to be of comparable cultural worth to the city.``

``I think they`ve got some confused information,`` replies WFMT general manager Richard Marschner, who is the successor to Nordstrand, ousted from the position last summer--he now has the title of president--allegedly because of his ineffective management style. ``It has been stated time after time here, and at Channel 11, that there is no intention to sell the station or change the format. The main question, though, is how this could be proper business for the City Council.``